THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A United Nations diplomat says the first batch of Syrian poison gas precursor chemicals has been loaded onto a Danish cargo ship and taken out of the war-torn country.

The announcement Tuesday by Sigrid Kaag that the raw materials had been loaded onto the ship at Syria’s Latakia port marked a belated but crucial step in the international operation to rid President Bashar Assad of his declared chemical weapons program by midyear.

Kaag is the Dutch diplomat leading the joint mission by the U.N. and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to destroy Syria’s chemical stockpile.